AL

@seriouscynic

Maritimer in Montréal (bilingue) any pronouns disappointed idealist

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AL@seriouscynic· 10d

Cole knows what it costs the people who trust him, which explains why it took so long to get the North Korea story in print. When I first heard rumors about it, I wondered how Kim Jong Un would react to what was, after all, an unprovoked attack on unarmed civilians. It turns out the danger came from somewhere else entirely, not Pyongyang, but Washington. That’s the lesson in what secrecy costs a journalist: the danger was never really the enemy abroad. It was always the government at home.

AL@seriouscynic· 16d

There is a fairer critique, and it comes from the left: Why ownership at all? Why not direct the same acquisition dollars toward non-market rental, co-operatives or community land trusts?

It is a serious question, and the honest answer is that this is not an either-or. Nothing about a rent-to-own stream precludes directing a portion of acquired units into permanent non-market housing — a well-designed program should do both. But the shared-equity model is not a privatization of public assets.

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The Bigger Condo Bailout No One Is Discussing
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When Julie eventually buys out the government’s stake, the public capital comes back — carrying its share of any appreciation — and revolves into the next qualifying household. The public dollar is not spent; it is recycled. And security of tenure — the ability to put down roots and build a stake in the place you live — is a good that renters in this market are systematically denied.

A housing system serious about fairness should offer non-market homes for those who need them, and also an on-ramp to ownership for those who have been locked out of one.

What this program attempts to create — imperfectly, incrementally, with details still to be filled in — is something Canada does not currently have at meaningful scale: a government-backed pathway to home ownership for middle-income earners. Not traditional social housing. Not market condos at

AL@seriouscynic· 23d

The new rate, laid out in three presidential proclamations, is set to take effect in 30 days.

While energy, potash, critical minerals and fish would be exempt, other products that until now have been allowed into the U.S. tariff-free under terms of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) would be hit.

The 50 per cent tariff is five times higher than the current duty imposed on the small portion of Canada's exports to the U.S. that don't comply with CUSMA's rules of origin regulations.

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 27

"I want to be extremely clear that the closure of this facility means the extinction of salmon in the Wolastoq watershed." - Chief Gruben "Salmon were our buffalo." - Grand Chief Tremblay wnnb.wolastoqey.ca/what-we-do/f... nbmediacoop.org/2022/01/07/s...

The Wolastoqiyik are salmon people. Polamuwok play a central role in many of our stories and traditions. Sadly, the Wolastoqiyik have been unable to harvest salmon from our own river since 1998. The loss of Polamuwok from Wolastoq represents a loss of Wolastoqey cultural identity.

Canada has committed, through the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and through its own reconciliation agenda, to consult and cooperate with Indigenous peoples on decisions that significantly affect our rights. The decision to shut down the last facility standing between the Wolastoq salmon and extinction is exactly the kind of decision that demands that consultation and, in fact, that consultation is a legal requirement.

First Nations and stakeholders are ready to work with DFO to ensure the vital programs operating at the facility can continue to ensure the long-term conservation of this critical species.

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 27

Dans un rapport publié en 2018, l’Agence internationale de l’énergie avait décrit le cercle vicieux de ces appareils gros consommateurs d’électricité, émetteurs de gaz réfrigérants à effet de serre plus puissants que le CO2 et qui rejettent un air chaud amplifiant les bulles de chaleur urbaines.

Aujourd’hui, il y a environ 1,6 milliard de climatiseurs installés dans le monde. Mais ils pourraient atteindre 5,6 milliards d’ici à 2050.

« Cela veut dire que chaque seconde, il se vendra 10 unités d’air conditionné pendant les 30 prochaines années », indique à l’AFP Lily Riahi, spécialiste du Programme de l’ONU pour l’environnement (PNUE). Ils consommeraient alors « l’équivalent de la consommation énergétique de la Chine et de l’Inde d’aujourd’hui ».

L’élimination des gaz hydrofluorocarbones utilisés par ces climatiseurs permettrait à eux seuls d’éviter 0,5 °C de réchauffement, assure-t-elle.

« Si nous voulons un avenir meilleur, nous devons repenser la façon dont nous nous maintenons au frais et les réseaux de froid sont une bonne option, en particulier dans les villes denses », poursuit-elle.

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/environnement/2019-07-25/des-tuyaux-d-eau-glacee-sous-les-villes-alternative-a-la-climatisation

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 24

Heat is shutting down nuclear plants: France's record-breaking temperatures have warmed rivers so much that at least one nuclear reactor has already shut down, and others are being scaled back.

Nuclear isn't the only casualty: In 2025, hydropower was down 13% across Europe compared to the prior year. During the current heat wave, five UK gas plants have shed roughly 2.5 gigawatts of output.

Demand is surging: Air-conditioning use in the UK has roughly doubled since 2022, and globally, energy used for cooling is expected to double by 2050.

Fixing this won't be cheap: EDF alone expects to spend around $680 million per year over the next 15 years just to climate-proof its French operations.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/06/24/1139676/europe-heat-power-plants/

If the world is getting warmer, why can’t we just install a lot more air conditioners?

There are three problems with that. Firstly, billions of people around the world cannot afford to buy and operate air conditioners; for them, that kind of cooling is a “distant dream”, says UNEP’s Krause.

Secondly, air conditioners are voracious consumers of electricity, which is still generated from burning fossil fuels in most places, stoking climate change.

Finally, many types of cooling equipment, like fridges and air conditioners, run on hydrofluorocarbons, synthetic gases that are powerful climate pollutants. Some warm the planet nearly 4,000 times more over a 20-year period than carbon dioxide.

Without major changes, 10 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions will come from cooling by 2050.

“Cooling is essential for the health and well-being of billions,” says Krause. “The irony is that, right now, as current systems are highly polluting and energy-intensive, it’s making the problem with extreme heat worse, perpetuating a vicious cycle.”

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/boiling-hot-how-countries-can-beat-growing-threat-extreme-heat

If air conditioning is problematic, what can countries do to counter extreme heat?

There are several things governments can do to reduce heat risks in countries and rural communities while also protecting their people – including the most vulnerable - from scorching heat.

To lower temperatures, officials can:

promote passive cooling strategies, especially those that involve nature, like tree planting;
enact urban planning standards so that roads, buildings and other infrastructure dissipate heat instead of concentrating it, as they often do now; and
turbo-charge efforts to phase out fossil fuels and quickly cut down on the use of refrigerants that warm the planet.
To reduce on heat-related illnesses and deaths, countries can:

establish early warning systems that alert residents of impending heat waves;
strengthen healthcare systems and roll out action plans for countering the health-related risks of extreme heat;
scale up sustainable cooling programmes;
develop and enforce rules that protect workers, especially outdoor labourers, from high temperatures; and
buttress critical infrastructure, like power plants, hospitals and schools, against rising temperatures.

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/boiling-hot-how-countries-can-beat-growing-threat-extreme-heat

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 24

That America’s election system is uniquely repressive is common knowledge among experts. “Nowhere is the concern [about governing-party repression] greater than in the United States, as partisan influence is possible at all stages of the electoral contest,” concludes a recent survey of comparative election law.

“Perhaps the clearest case of overt partisan manipulation of the rules is the United States, where Democrats and Republicans appear automatically on the ballot, but third parties and independents have to overcome a maze of cumbersome legal requirements,” writes Pippa Norris, a world elections authority at Harvard and director of democratic governance at the United Nations Development Program.

“One of the best-kept secrets in American politics,” the eminent political scientist Theodore Lowi has written, “is that the two-party system has long been brain dead — kept alive by support systems like state electoral laws that protect the established parties from rivals and by federal subsidies and so-called campaign reform. The two-party system would collapse in an instant if the tubes were pulled and the IVs were cut.”

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 24

Pollingism descends from dataism imo. [Excerpts from Ch. 11 of Byung-Chul Han's Psychopolitics]

Big Data is supposed to be freeing knowledge from subjective arbitrariness. By this logic, intuition does not represent a higher form of knowing; instead, it represents something merely subjective – a stopgap compensating for the shortage of objective data. In complex situations, the argument goes, intuition is blind. The mistrust even extends to theory, which is suspected of being an ideology: if enough data are available, it should prove superfluous as well. The second Enlightenment is the age of purely data-driven knowledge. Anderson’s visionary rhetoric goes: ‘Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.’6

Dataism, it turns out, is amounting to digital Dadaism. Dadaism also takes leave of meaningful contexts of every kind. It empties language itself of sense: ‘The acts of life have no beginning or end. Everything happens in a completely idiotic way. That is why everything is alike. Simplicity is called Dada.’8 Dataism is nihilism.9 It gives up on any and all meaning. Data and numbers are not narrative; they are additive. Meaning, on the other hand, is based on narration. Data simply fills up the senseless void.

Data-mining does not differ from statistics in any fundamental way. The correlations it lays bare represent only what is likely in statistical terms. It calculates average values. As such, Big Data has no access to what is unique. Big Data is wholly blind to the event. Not what is statistically likely, but what is unlikely – the singular, the event – will shape history, in other words, the future of mankind. Thus, Big Data is blind to the future too.

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 22

Neat sequence at the end: - new guy speaks more fluidly, that should help [image of fascists demanding ethnic cleansing] - expert: the social contract of liberal capitalism is broken - and for the final word... Boris Johnson whining that no one recognizes his wonderful brilliance because of COVID

Whereas Starmer has been criticized as being a stiff, wooden speaker, Burnham is more polished and often speaks without notes.

Still, many voters feel a sense of disillusionment that is likely too much for any single politician to resolve, said Harry Quilter-Pinner, executive director at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Protesters hold flags and march. They hold a banner that says, 'Britain First' and 'March for Remigration.'
Far-right Britain First party co-leaders Paul Golding, centre, and Ashlea Simon, centre-right, lead supporters on a 'March for Remigration' calling for mass deportations, in Manchester, England, in August 2025. (Peter Powell/AFP/Getty Images)
"I think what we are seeing is ... people feeling that the central promise of liberal capitalist societies, which is basically that things will get better, your kids will do better than you do and your wages will go up and your living standards will improve," he told BBC. "That deal is fundamentally broken.”

On Monday morning, among those offering advice to Burnham was none other than Boris Johnson, the former Conservative prime minister who himself was forced out of the job by angry MPs after winning a majority government.

Family of victim urges Belfast knife attack not be used 'to fuel hostility' after fiery scenes

Brexit scholar says Alberta referendum gives him 'a feeling of déjà vu'

“You may be full of brilliant ideas for levelling up your country and you will have a wonderful agenda. But then, you know, some asteroid will hit you, like COVID or something,” said Johnson.

“You know, so ... go fast."

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 22

If you wanted abundance you would let the data scrapers and content mills suckle at your take teat.

"Transparency is demanded in the name of the freedom of information too. In reality, however, this amounts to nothing other than a neoliberal dispositive. It means turning everything inside out by force and transforming it into information. Under the immaterial mode of production that now prevails, more information and more communication mean more productivity, acceleration and growth. Information represents a positive value; inasmuch as it lacks interiority, it can circulate independently, free from any and all context. Accordingly, the circulation of information admits acceleration at will – for purely arbitrary reasons.

Secrets, foreignness and otherness represent impediments to unbounded communication. In the name of transparency, they are to be eliminated. Communication goes faster when it is smoothed out – that is, when thresholds, walls and gaps are removed. This also means stripping people of interiority, which blocks and slows down communication. However, such emptying-out of persons does not occur by violent means. Instead, it occurs as voluntary self-exposure. The negativity of otherness or foreignness is de-interiorized and transformed into the positivity of communicable and consumable difference: ‘diversity’. The dispositive of transparency effects utter exteriorization in order to accelerate the circulation of information and speed communication. Ultimately, openness facilitates unrestricted communication – whereas closedness, reserve and interiority obstruct it.

The dispositive of transparency has the further consequence of promoting total conformity. The economy of transparency seeks to suppress deviation. Total networking – total communication – already has a levelling effect per se. Its effect is conformity: it is as if everyone were watching over everyone else – even before intelligence agencies or secret services have stepped in to supervise and steer. ..."

out of characters sorry
The quote is from chapter 1 of Psychopolitics by Byung-Chul Han

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 3

Making the state more competent by cutting many of its most competent workers: only a technocratic genius could come up with that! Er, not "come up with," I meant "get away with."

He is simply trying to make the state more competent, with the understanding that market forces are not the enemy, but a necessary element.

From Hub article

Cuts to archives threaten our ability to preserve our precious heritage
On April 30, Library and Archives Canada eliminated the $1.71-million National Archival Development Program and made drastic cuts to its own staffing. These cuts are devastating to the Canadian archival network and to Canadian documentary heritage.

By Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
Posted Mar 25, 2026 5:00:09 AM, Last Updated Mar 25, 2026 01:01:13 PM

OTTAWA - The union representing staff at Global Affairs Canada says the foreign service is laying off dozens of its most skilled diplomats, while asking other envoys moving across continents to wait months for their personal items.

Federal cuts to agriculture science will hurt farmers and grocery shoppers, experts say
Canada's farmers rely on federal research to help them overcome drought and pests. Now, Agriculture Canada is closing facilities and cutting 12 per cent of its workforce, while climate pressures mount
By Delaney Seiferling
Delany Seiferling is a journalist based in Regina, Sask., who specializes in Canadian agriculture
Feb. 4 2026 8 min. read

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 3

Blatant strawman

Just because those plans don’t involve state-imposed gender parity doesn’t automatically make Carney a right-wing guy.

From Hub article

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 3

Smaller govt, lower taxes, fewer rules, more market-based solutions vs Leaner govt, lower taxes, faster approvals, more alignment with the incentives of capital, investment, and growth Very distinct ideas, not just different packaging, eh?

It’s true that he has borrowed selectively from the Conservative Party of Canada. From repealing the consumer carbon tax to reversing changes to the capital gains tax to cracking down on crime and immigration abuses and even adopting a more growth-oriented tone on productivity and investment, Carney has been willing to lift ideas he believes will improve the state’s ability to function.

But borrowing tactics is not the same thing as sharing a governing philosophy.

Though he is shrinking parts of the public service, what Carney is not doing is shrinking the role of government or rolling back the state. In that sense, he is not a conservative dressed in a red suit, as many have mused.

For conservatives, the answer is typically less government. Fewer rules, lower taxes, and a greater reliance on markets to sort out scarcity.

Carney’s answer is different. He wants a government that is stronger where it counts, and one capable of coordinating capital, accelerating approvals, aligning incentives, and delivering large, complex projects in the public interest.

Just because those plans don’t involve state-imposed gender parity doesn’t automatically make Carney a right-wing guy.

From Hub article

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 3

"Shrinking the public service is not rolling back the state." Yes, it is.

Though he is shrinking parts of the public service, what Carney is not doing is shrinking the role of government or rolling back the state. In that sense, he is

From Hub article

AL@seriouscynic· Jun 3

For now, abundance theory remains largely an American debate, circulating among U.S. progressives wrestling with the failures of their own institutions. There, it competes for influence within the Democratic Party.

From Hub article

(If potential Democratic supporter) Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the abundance movement or have you not heard of it?
(FOLLOW UP: Is that very or somewhat?)
Date: May 11-15, 2026
Pop: R.V.
N: 611
Very favorable: 1%
Somewhat favorable: 2%
Somewhat unfavorable: 2%
Very unfavorable: 1%
Have not heard of: 91%
[VOL] Don't know/Refused: 2%

AL@seriouscynic· May 25

Another of Leo's sources may be Byung-Chul Han?

Today, we do not deem ourselves subjugated subjects, but rather projects: always refashioning and reinventing ourselves. A sense of freedom attends passing from the state of subject to that of project. All the same, this projection amounts to a form of compulsion and constraint – indeed, to a more efficient kind of subjectivation and subjugation. As a project deeming itself free of external and alien limitations, the I is now subjugating itself to internal limitations and self-constraints, which are taking the form of compulsive achievement and optimization.

Han, Psychopolitics, 2015

The neoliberal imperative of self-optimization serves only to promote perfect functioning within the system. Inhibitions, points of weakness and mistakes are to be therapeutically eliminated in order to enhance efficiency and performance. In turn, everything is made comparable and measurable and subjected to the logic of the market. It is not concern for the good life that drives self-optimization. Rather, self-optimization follows from systemic constraints – from the logic of quantifying success on the market.

Han, Psychopolitics, 2015

AL@seriouscynic· May 25

The Pope & Byung-Chul Han, in unison: a new kind of power which silently influences us all via big data and algorithms threatens human freedom for the sake of efficiency and profit. Pope: Amen Han: Didn't we invent God so we wouldn't have to be free? Pope: ... no.

Today, we are entering the age of digital psychopolitics. It means passing from passive surveillance to active steering. As such, it is precipitating a further crisis of freedom: now, free will itself is at stake. Big Data is a highly efficient psychopolitical instrument that makes it possible to achieve comprehensive knowledge of the dynamics of social communication. This knowledge is knowledge for the sake of domination and control (Herrschaftswissen): it facilitates intervention in the psyche and enables influence to take place on a pre-reflexive level.

For human beings to be able to act freely, the future must be open. However, Big Data is making it possible to predict human behaviour. This means that the future is becoming calculable and controllable. Digital psychopolitics transforms the negativity of freely made decisions into the positivity of factual states (Sachverhalte). Indeed, persons are being positivized into things, which can be quantified, measured and steered. Needless to say, no thing can be free. But at the same time, things are more transparent than persons. Big Data has announced the end of the person who possesses free will.

(Han 2015)

172. At the root of these problems lies a technocratic and post-humanist mentality that tends to regard the human person as an object to be manipulated or a resource to be optimized, [172] removing all safeguards against the unchecked pursuit of profit. What prevails is efficiency, rather than respect for freedom and human dignity. Some post-humanist currents even go so far as to envision “second-class” human beings, subordinate to the interests of elites who consider themselves superior. This troubling prospect becomes all the more serious when combined with technological tools that exponentially increase the capacity for control and selection. Even certain forms of structural indebtedness, which keep entire peoples in conditions of dependence, reflect the same mentality, in new forms, that tolerates relationships of subordination akin to slavery.

(Pope Leo 2026)

Acxiom is a company trading in the personal data of about 300 million US citizens – in other words, practically all of them. By now, Acxiom knows more about Americans than the FBI. The company divides people into seventy categories. In the catalogue, they are offered up like goods for sale. For any need, there is something to buy. People with a low economic value are designated as ‘waste’ – that is, ‘trash’. Consumers with a higher market value are found in the group ‘Shooting Star’. From ages thirty-six to forty-five they are dynamic, get up early to go jogging, have no children but are married, like to travel, and watch Seinfeld.

Big Data is leading to the emergence of a new digital class society. Human beings assigned to the ‘waste’ category belong to the lowest class. People with a bad score are denied credit. Thus, the panopticon has been joined by a ‘ban-opticon’.14 The panopticon kept watch over prisoners of the system who were incarcerated. The ban-opticon, on the other hand, is a dispositive that identifies persons who stand outside the system or are hostile to it, and excludes them. The classical panopticon served to discipline. In contrast, the ban-opticon ensures the system’s security and efficiency.

(Han 2015)

AL@seriouscynic· May 20

But the audacious plan, developed by the Israelis and which Mr.
Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, quickly went awry,
according to the U.S. officials who were briefed on it.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was injured on the war’s first day by an Israeli
strike at his home in Tehran that had been designed to free him
from house arrest, the American officials and an associate of Mr.
Ahmadinejad said. He survived the strike, they said, but after the
near miss he became disillusioned with the regime change plan.
He has not been seen publicly since then and his current
whereabouts and condition are unknown.

AL@seriouscynic· May 19

Sorry to be a stick in the mud. Btw, Canada Insight actually was one of the channels identified as inauthentic by the Canadian Digital Media Research Network in their report on pro-separatism slopaganda! Evidently, it's become active again since the report. www.cdmrn.ca/slopaganda-t...

Figure 2 from the report here: https://www.cdmrn.ca/slopaganda-the-inauthentic-youtube-network-selling-secession-to-albertans

"Figure 2. Inauthentic channel activity timeline
Active periods and descriptives for the 20 inauthentic channels we analyzed, with a cumulative sum of nearly 40 million views."

AL@seriouscynic· May 19

Pick one fake logo!

AL@seriouscynic· May 17

Net zero means more methane power plants. A UN special envoy for climate action told me so. When I don't feel like having a healthy snack, I eat a burger first. Doctor said that's not helpful, but I got a second opinion from a central banker and it's all good 👍 www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

According to a government statement, the plan, which is called Powering Canada Strong, will lower the cost of electricity for seven in 10 Canadian households by expanding the role that natural gas plays in the energy mix.

Powering Canada Strong says natural gas "has one of the lowest emissions intensities in the world," which "allows natural gas to play multiple roles, including supporting peak demand, bolstering system reliability during periods of stress or low renewable output and meeting baseload generation needs."

Carney also said there is "no credible path to net zero" without ensuring that energy is affordable for Canadians.

AL@seriouscynic· May 13

"they don't see what they want"

Cover of JENNY HOLZER, a 1989 book describing the artist's career.

The image shows the phrase "PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT" in black letters on a white field on the Caesars Palace marquee in Las Vegas, 1986.

From https://www.guggenheim.org/publication/jenny-holzer

AL@seriouscynic· Apr 30

Municipal utilities maintaining local energy infrastructure is one way we can keep us safe

[Screenshot of bsky post]
Jaimie G
@jlpmcphail.bsky.social
Joined Nov '24
shorturl.at/91VDv The district, made up of 4 villages tucked into forest
valley of western Ukraine, relies on small network of hydroelectric power stations that have continued operating even as Russian attacks have all but destroyed the country's centralized energy grid.
'This is the future' - Amid blackouts, these Ukrainian mountain villages have green solution
As Russian missiles and drones plunge much of Ukraine into darkness this winter, the mountain community of Ust-Chorna has largely kept the lights on - thanks to green ..
shorturl.at
10:36 PM
Feb 20, 2026

AL@seriouscynic· Apr 24

The author of Canada's national defence policy, who now works at the US Department of War, considers Elbridge Colby a man of deep insight. Elbridge Colby thinks Spain should be suspended from NATO. Also, he lobbied against Ukraine aid. Don't complain or you're helping Putin (and Xi). 🤡 #cdnpoli